


Uncertainty Mechanics

by antithestral



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Abandoned Work - Unfinished and Discontinued, Aged-Up Character(s), Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-24
Updated: 2020-10-24
Packaged: 2021-03-09 06:55:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 802
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27179569
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/antithestral/pseuds/antithestral
Summary: A while back, I think it was four years ago now, I wanted to write this story where things got absolutely cluster-fucked for Harry and the gang, around Book Five, and the fight against Voldemort devolved into an open war of attrition, that lasted for years and years until finally, they lost. Faced with no options, Harry decided the only thing to do was to do it all again.A stolen Time Turner, a broken Seal, and a lost potion created by Morgana Le Fey that Merlin himself locked away for fear of what it could do to the nature of existence, et voila — a battered, paranoid, deeply pessimistic Harry Potter was shoved thirty years into the past, to 1991, where he promptly decided to take up a position at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.So this is that fic. Or at least, the beginnings of it, which is all I ever wrote.
Comments: 1
Kudos: 3





	Uncertainty Mechanics

Harry walked into the dungeons, Ron on his left and Dean and Seamus trailing behind. Fred and George Weasley had warned all the first-years about the Potions professor but Harry wasn't quite sure how seriously to take them--surely no _teacher_ could be quite so… Well. 

The corridors here were quiet and cool, the dark, smooth stone seeming to suck in noise and light, and even cheer. Harry shivered, and followed the small troupe of Slytherins preceding them, into the classroom on the left. 

And then stopped. 

Dean and Seamus walked right into him, and they all collapsed into a heap, and still Harry felt… 

Honestly, he felt a bit confused. 

He picked himself up, ignoring Malfoy’s stupid-sounding laugh, and stared. 

The Potions classroom was a large, rectangular hall, painted a stark, antiseptic white. Fluorescent strip lighting flooded the space with a bright, even glare, and the floor was tiled with enormous slabs of grey-white marble. Glass cupboards lined the room, stuffed to bursting with all sorts of odds and ends, and the room smelt funny too - like bad eggs and Lysol - but it was. 

It was…

“It’s rather _Muggle_ , isn't it?” Hermione murmured from somewhere on his right, and yes. 

_Yes_. 

That was _exactly_ it. It was the most Muggle-looking room in all of Hogwarts, and Harry just didn't know what to make of it. 

Ron rolled his eyes, and grabbed Harry’s elbow. “C’mon, mate. Let's get a seat before all the good ones are gone.” Harry let Ron drag him to the back, and plopped his book bag on a very ordinary looking schooldesk. More and more, there was a gnawing itch in the back of his head, like this wasn't how any of this was supposed to go. 

He’d just managed to have that thought pop into his head, when the door swung open and the professor strode in. He was short, pale and sort of mean-looking, like Frankenstein’s angrier, baby brother -- a jagged scar all down the side of face, his right eye sewn shut with big, ugly black stitches, his left hand replaced with a silver-blue skeletal _thing,_ that gleamed and refracted the light _._ His right eye was covered in milky whiteness, like cataracts, except Harry was pretty sure cataracts didn't swirl about like fog at the bottom of a valley, the way his did. 

But perhaps the strangest thing about their professor was this -- he wore _jeans._

Under his robes sure, but still– _jeans._

“Right, sit down, sit down, shut up!” Three loud blasts sounded from the tip of his wand, and the class flinched back in surprise. 

They shut up. 

“Now, the Ministry wants you to be brewing from Day One, because the Ministry run by incompetent clowns in top hats. This is my class. So you deal with _my_ rules.” The Professor glared from behind his big, boring, awfully Muggle desk. Beside Harry, Ron gulped. 

“You will open your textbooks. You will copy down the ingredients and the steps to a Boil-Removing Solution _three times._ You will memorize the ingredients and the steps. When you are done, you will **_silently_** put up your hand. I will come to your desk, and you will recite it for me.” The class didn't even breathe. “Well? Do you want a gold-plated invitation? START!”

There was a mad scramble as the students --Gryffindor and Slytherin both-- rushed to stow away their cauldrons and pull out their Ministry-issued textbooks. 

Three rows ahead, Hermione Granger stuck her hand up. Harry didn't know if she was brave, or just stupid. 

“What,” the Professor snarled. 

“Sir, what if we’ve already memorized the potion?”

“I presume you have, Miss Granger?” _Woah, he knew her name?_ Harry and Ron exchanged a glance. _What else did he know?_

“Yes sir!” Hermione chirped back, happily. “I have!”

“ _Ex_ -cellent,” the Professor hissed malevolently. “For that little bit of showing-off, you can write it _four_ times.”

“...pr- professor?”

The Professor was settling into his chair, pulling a beat-up old paperback from his desk and opening it to somewhere in the middle. “Interrupt me again, girl, and it’ll be _five_ times.”

Jeez, what a bastard. 

From over on the Slytherin side, Malfoy sniggered, the poncy little rat. Ron shot him a glare, and the Professor’s blank, all-seeing gaze moved to him too. 

“Master Malfoy… Would you also like to write the potion five times?”

“N-no, Professor?”

“Then I suggest you very rapidly learn to appreciate the merits of keeping your mouth **_shut_** , boy, or you’ll be in the same boat as Miss Granger, who at least showed a degree of preparedness that you did _not_.”

Malfoy turned a very curious shade of grey-green and practically cricked his neck while he snapped his gaze down to his potions textbook.

Harry took it back. The new Potions Professor was _great._

\---

  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> The work is unfinished, and unlikely to be continued.
> 
> thanks for reading! if you liked it, remember to hit kudos <3  
> find me on tumblr @pasdecoeur


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